


Fading Ghosts and Distant Memories

by RoseDelSol



Series: Harry Potter Short Stories [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 05:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8315626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseDelSol/pseuds/RoseDelSol
Summary: The stories of Helena Ravenclaw and Voldemort are twisted together by fate and through many years.But the story of Helena Ravenclaw and the Diadem started long before Tom Riddle walked the halls of Hogwarts





	

**Author's Note:**

> Repost form my tumblr

The Grey Lady they called her. The house ghost of Ravenclaw.

They reduced her. Made her being nothing more than a shadow, a whisper. Something you could go on and forget all about as soon as she floated around the corner - or through the next wall for that matter.  
The only students she could stand where the Ravenclaws, but of those only few actually talked to her.

She never listened to those calling her Grey Lady. But there weren’t many to call her anyway.  
She preferred to stay in the lonely towers and corridors of the castle, far away from noisy and nosey students. Away from the questioning glances of the first years. Away from the prying eyes of people who had actually read Hogwarts: A History.  
And most of all she stayed away from the dungeons at all cost.

When she was a student herself, taught the art of magic by her mother, one of the great founders of Hogwarts herself, she had loved the dungeons. Or well, part of them anyway.  
She had a talent for potions rarely found outside of the Slytherin House. And still, she had it. Nurtured it, grew it, and made it an art form. Her passion for both the most difficult charms and enchantment spells, as well as the fine art of potion brewing was what ultimately peaked his interest and led him to visit her at her reading spot in the library.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in the last week before her final exams. Helena was sitting in the library, at her favourite desk - a desk which would many, many, many years later become the favourite place of one Hermione Granger; but of this Helena had no idea at that time. So she sat at her favourite desk in the library and studied.  
It was all she was ever doing these days, because really, who else could possibly be top of the year? And Helena took no chances, not when grades were concerned.  
Helena just picked up a new roll of parchment when he dropped down in the chair beside her. She looked at him for a mere second, then turned towards her notes once more.

She knew he must have been considered handsome. Most probably thought him wise and maybe even charming.  
Helena thought he was pompous and arrogant and so very, very boring.  
From what she gathered overhearing his conversations in the classroom, she guessed he could be pleasant enough, however he was unable to hold an intelligent conversation on anything but potions. She found it hideous. Such a boring man!

Apparently however, he did not mind her cold behaviour, and was waiting quite patiently for her to look at him again.  
With an exasperated sigh she looked up and met his eyes. He raised an elegant eyebrow and crooked his head to the left, something inquiringly in his gaze. Despite Rowena Ravenclaw being one of the school’s two female founders, a majority of the male Slytherin students thought women were supposed to be defiant and shy.

Helena was neither. She was proud and forward, she was wild and clever, and would never bow her will to a man simply for him being a man. She would bow for anyone who could brew Felix Felicis better than her, or who could hold a mentally satisfying discussion about the use of unicorn blood. Yes, such were the qualities she looked for in a man, and never would she accept anything less.

Alas, men like this were rare, and as far as Helena could tell, not a single one of them had ventured into Hogwarts since she had been here.  
Reluctant she concentrated her focus on the boy - or was he to be called a man already ? - in front of her. He showed a bright smile, surely made to lure her in, and seemed to be waiting for her to speak still. And speaking she did, for he had interrupted her studying, and there really was nothing worse so short a time before her exams.  
“What brings you here, interrupting my studies?” she inquired, forgoing any politeness, hoping the conversation would be over more quickly this way.

He smiled a little deeper and asked, bowed and spoke. His voice was pleasant, just as everything else about him was pleasant. Pleasant and boring, Helena reminded herself. The longer she listened to him, the more horrified she became. He wanted to take her his wife! A housewife, her? She shuddered violently pushed away from the table. His words came to an abrupt stop when she hastily grabbed her things and took three quick backward steps into the direction of the library entrance. “Never will I marry a man like you. Never would I submit myself to become a housewife and be at your mercy!”

She turned on her heel and rushed through the library, quickly dropping off the books at the front desk.  
Then she was out, down the corridor, though one of her mother’s hidden passages, and up some stairs. He wanted to make her his, to have her to limit her potion brewing skills to cooking dinner and possibly hang over potions for him and his friends. He would want her to dim her light, so she would never outshine him or any of his important aquaintances.  
But Helena knew she was made for a bigger purpose, for a better man. And Helena knew she had to get away from Hogwarts. Her mother had been going on and on about her finding a possible husband - and wasn’t this Hufflepuff boy a good match? No, no he surely wasn’t.

She seethed with anger. Her mother, who had all on her own, become one of the founders of England’s highest praised school for witches and wizards, who had never considered standing in her husband’s shadow or to sell herself for less than she was worth, this very same woman was now trying to sell her to a man. A Hufflepuff at that!

Helena rushed to her chambers and packed her bags, shrinking everything to a comfortable size and took off. She was almost out of the door when she remembered something. It would be risky, but she was sure she could make it. And her mother would have given her the diadem anyway - only Rowena wanted her to wear it on her wedding.  
Not going to happen.

She rushed through silent and abandoned corridors towards the rooms of her mother, slipped through the charms and past the locked door - her mother always shared her passwords with her - and hastily searched the rooms behind for the piece of jewellery. It was rightfully hers and so it was only natural it was at her to decide what to do with it.

 

Years later Helena floated over the ruins of Hogwarts and looked down at the only boy who had ever managed (and bothered) to match her intellect.  
He had spent hours and hours sitting with her in abandoned classrooms and discussed potions, ingredients, charms and spells. She had even been able to laugh from time to time. He had been so wonderful. Almost too good to be true.  
She should have known that no good could ever come from a man like that. He had stolen the diadem from her, eventough he could not technically steal it from her - it was never hers to take, Helena knew that now. Had maybe know it already on the day she had stolen it from her mother.

And now the boy had returned to Hogwarts to do with the school what he had promised to do with the diadem.

Helena floated over the roofs of the astronomy tower and looked down at the war being fought at her feet. A war she had no real part in, and was still responsible for somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> Another character study... somehow  
> I seem to have thing for tragic figures, no surprise there
> 
> Basically my headcanon of Helena Ravenclaws past and present feelings.  
> I'm not even sure if JK Rowling has released a full background for her, but since this has already been written - well, in for a Knut, in for a Galleon.
> 
> Reviews & Kudos are appreciated - talk to me folks!


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